If you’ve scrolled through Instagram lately, you’ve probably noticed a sudden uptick in people posting about their #quarantinelife baked goods. But one in particular has people Insta-bragging like never before: sourdough bread.
Really, it makes so much sense that people are hopping on the sourdough bread train. Making it requires very few inputs (just flour and water), but also demands frequent care throughout a day — the kneading, proofing, and baking process takes around 24 hours total. But the end results are utterly delicious, even for inexperienced bakers. And bonus, you don’t have to go to the grocery store and risk contamination to get your bread!
As with many things in our digitally connected life — like workouts, beauty tutorials, and more — people feel the need to share their baking exploits on Instagram. In fact there are 2.7 million posts tagged #sourdough on the ‘gram right now. The fact that NYT Cooking’s lead newsletter story this week was about making your own sourdough means that we’ll likely be seeing a lot more #artisanbread posts coming our way over the next few weeks.
Being a good millennial, I had to try my hand at sourdough this week. I’d gotten a starter from a friend which had laid dormant in my fridge. A few days of feeding later, plus an intensive 24 hours of kneading, resting, and proofing near the heater in my bedroom, and I had two pretty good loaves of sourdough!
Did I share it on Instagram? Of course I did. And I got comments back of people sending me their own photos of sourdough, focaccia, pretzels, and other yeasty endeavors. One friend and I decided that we would do a loaf exchange for our next round of sourdough baking. Another asked me to drop off some of my starter so she could start baking, too.
Unfortunately, my sourdough ambitions are on hold at the moment since every grocery store I’ve visited over the past few days has been 100 percent out of flour. Which just goes to show — if social media didn’t illustrate the point enough already — that we’re all baking to relieve stress and feed our loved ones. Because when everything seems uncertain and sometimes downright scary, it’s reassuring to care for something else — even if that something else is just a sourdough starter.
Just don’t forget to post your results on Instagram. #Sourdough #naturallyleavened #wildyeast
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